There are lemon trees where my great-grandparents’ graves
Used to be.

There is a farmhouse where my grandmother
Entered the world head first, tiny fists grasping
For the stars.

There is a tractor parked where her mother
Buried the afterbirth to root her
To the soil.

There is a chicken coop where my grandmother
Was once dawdled on her father’s lap
As he told her
“This land was passed down to my father, from his father,
and his father before him.”

There is a swimming pool on the trail where my grandmother
Once walked home from school eating sun-burst mangoes
Plucked from trees who’d dipped their branches towards her
To say, “welcome home.”

Until one day the land was marked ‘whites only’
And an officer looked at her browned skin
And said, “this land is not yours,”
Threw her out and sold it to a farmer
Fresh off a boat from Europe
Whose white skin was the only acceptable currency.

Now his grandchildren say to me,
“Our grandfather had nothing handed to him.
He bought this land legally,
Poured life into it from his bare hands.
And besides, the past has nothing to do with us,
Why should it shape our future?”

So now there are lemon trees where my great-grandparents graves
Used to be.
And the soil fertilised by their afterbirths
Calls out to me.
It says, “come home.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by ersin izan from Pexels